TWINSBURG, Ohio -- Judy Yeager found a lump in her breast during a self-exam in 1997.

On Your Side Health Specialist Lee Jordan reports that breast cancer runs in Yeager's family. Nevertheless, she was shocked when she heard that she had cancer.

"I kinda figured I was going to get it sooner or later," she said.

Jordan says she had a mastectomy, radiation therapy and even a stem cell transplant. The extensive treatments meant Yeager had to wait before having breast reconstruction.

"I thought 'I'm bigger than this. I'm tougher than this," she said. "I can do without a breast.' And then after a couple of years, ya know, I said 'I don't have to be tough, I can have this.' "

After Yeager decided to go ahead with the mastectomy, she had two options -- either an implant or trans-flap reconstruction.

In the implant procedure, surgeons first place a tissue expander under the pectoralis muscle. They inflate the expander and then wait a few weeks.

"We go back with a second operation, same incision, take out the expander because it's not permanent and put in the implant," said Dr. Edward Luce of University Hospitals.

In a trans-flap reconstruction, surgeons use fatty tissue, skin and muscle from the abdominal area.

"It's a more natural reconstruction," said Luce. "You're using the patient's own tissue. It looks more natural. It looks more natural, and it feels more natural," he said.

Yeager chose the trans-flap method.

"I thought it was just best to use my own skin," she said. "I really never liked the idea of an implant, a foreign material in my body, so for me it just made more sense."

Yeager is now more focused on living every day to the fullest.

"Every day really matters. Every morning when you wake up, you wake up and it's a good day," she said.